Lewis Hamilton took a home pole position at the British Grand Prix with an inspired performance to outpace Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg by over 0.4s.

Sebastian Vettel was third fastest for Red Bull but over 0.6s off Hamilton, although crucially did outperform team-mate Mark Webber, who is likely to be among his strongest contenders for victory on Sunday. Mercedes once again showed prodigious pace throughout the qualifying hour, but will likely struggle to maintain it over the course of the race.

Vettel's championship rivals Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso were way off the pace when it came down to the business end of the session and will start eighth and ninth respectively. In between them and Vettel will be Webber, Daniel Ricciardo in a very timely fifth, Adrian Sutil in sixth and Raikkonen's team-mate Grosjean in seventh. Paul di Resta had qualified fifth but was sent to the back of the grid when his car was found to be underweight.

Both McLarens dropped out in Q2 along with Felipe Massa, although Button only missed out by 0.057s and will start tenth due to di Resta's qualifying disqualification. It was another big disappointment for McLaren in front of its home crowd, and Perez, who lost set-up time due to a puncture in final practice, will start from 13th on the grid. Jean-Eric Vergne will be ahead of him in 12th but appeared to crack under the pressure as he ran wide at Becketts on his vital hot lap at the end of Q2, leaving him over 0.5s shy of his Toro Rosso team-mate Ricciardo.

After lining up third on the grid in Canada, Valtteri Bottas received a reality check as he dropped out in Q1 ahead of Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez.. The bottom four was led by Caterham's Charles Pic with Jules Bianchi 20th for Marussia. Giedo van der Garde outpaced Max Chilton but will drop to the back row of the grid when his 10-place penalty from Canada is imposed.

Paul Pogba said he left Manchester United because he was "disgusted" Sir Alex Ferguson picked a right-back ahead of him in midfield and revealed it caused the breakdown of his relationship with the former manager